Doing the right thing for customers

Every one of our 33 million customers has their own priorities and concerns.

We exist to help them Defy Uncertainty – to protect what’s important to them and to shape their futures.

We look after our customers whatever life throws at them and try to prevent some of those problems from happening in the first place.

Making things simple

We are improving our processes for the benefit of our customers. For example, Aviva Singapore has implemented e-submission for new business applications for individual life and health customers. This has reduced the need for paper forms and made applications easier for customers and advisers by providing an immediate underwriting decision.

Offering products to protect and inspire

Nearly two thirds of our markets offered our customers a product which enables them to be more environmentally responsible or gives them easier access to the protection they need for themselves or their families.

For example we offer ride-sharing and home-sharing insurance to customers in Aviva Canada. In Aviva Poland we’re offering discounts for in-home air quality sensors and purifiers to life and health insurance customers. We’ve also funded 300 external air quality sensors in Poland, which were added to the national network in places selected by local communities. By helping people monitor the air quality where they live, they can take action to protect themselves, their families, and their communities.

Prevention is protection

In 2017, Aviva Ventures, our global capital investment business, invested in Owlstone Medical, a company at the early stages of developing a breath analyser that can test lung and colorectal cancer, two of the most common terminal cancer conditions worldwide. Through start-up partnerships like this, we can take Defying Uncertainty to the next level. Find out more here.

Impact investing

In 2014 Aviva France launched ‘Aviva Impact Investing France’, becoming the first financial institution in the country to create an investment fund dedicated to financing socially and environmentally responsible companies. It is now endowed with €30 million. With the initiative, Aviva wants to participate in the development of social entrepreneurship, a particularly innovative sector.

Taking complaints seriously

We know we don’t always get it right. If customers are unhappy with our service, we listen and do our best to put it right – in line with our global customer business standard. We were the first insurer in the UK to publish unbiased customer reviews of our products and services. Customers publicly review their claims experiences with Defaqto ratings of 5.0 for our Motor policies and 4.6 for Homes.

Protecting vulnerable customers

We take our responsibility for protecting vulnerable customers’ rights seriously. In the UK, we supported the publication of the Financial Inclusion Commission report. It sets out findings from a research study and identifies ways to increase access to affordable home insurance for under-served people in the UK.

The report highlights that this group:

Face a higher risk of loss (up to 30 times in the case of arson);

Struggle to replace or repair their belongings – over seven million UK adults have less than £1,000 in savings;

Is biased towards the young, with 81% of ‘generation rent’ not having contents cover.

We fight fraud

Across the world we’re leading the fight to cut insurance fraud.

In the UK, we have supported the need for motor insurance reform through our Road to Reform campaign. We will continue to champion Road to Reform until it becomes law and Aviva has promised to pass on 100% of the savings to its customers when it does.

And in Canada, in 2017 we released the Aviva Fraud report, the first of its kind in the industry, raising public awareness on the impact of auto insurance fraud and the need for reforms.

Dormant assets

Despite companies’ best efforts, millions of ‘lost pounds’ go unclaimed. We support the UK Government’s Dormant Assets Commission’s objective of financial services companies’ protecting customer’s rights by trying to find them and reuniting them with their funds.

First and foremost, this is customers’ money. However, when funds are truly dormant, we’re hoping to find ways to make better use of the money for societal good.